Here we are again at Toronto Pearson Airport, ready for a run across the Atlantic. We're stupidly early, but any travel involving travel on Ontario's Highway 401 requires you to build in some slack.
The aim this time around, only nine months after our last trip, is to visit DW's dad and stepmum, given that with older parents, you never know which trip will be the last time you see them. We're booked into a little cottage near Ashburton in south Devon, about half an hour's drive from the old homestead. Sometimes that little bit of distance can be beneficial.
We'll no doubt get out and about, but our primary aim is family.
I won't be publishing any of these blog entries until we're back in Canada, just to make sure that family stays front and centre
So, back to the trip.
We've spent an anxious few days fretting about travel, thanks largely to the situation in the Middle East. However, everything looked OK for transatlantic travel, so we decided to press on. We always talk about packing lightly, but we never do, so this morning I loaded up the car with THREE suitcases for the TWO of us. To be fair, the combined weight of the three could have been split between two cases, but we tend to bring stuff back, so now have a "spare" case.
We haven't done a road trip in a while, so it was quite a treat to be heading out on the highway towards Toronto, even with the rain. This is the first rain we've had since November, which sounds bad, but precipitation has been exclusively of the snowy variety, so it's not like we've been parched. Highway 401 is a busy road, full of eighteen-wheeler trucks and people ignoring the speed limit. I set the cruise control to about 104kph, to keep pace with the trucks, and was doing fine until one of those trucks tried to pass me. Between Tilbury and London, it's just two lanes each way, so for what seemed like hours, this truck crept past. It started signalling to come into my lane when it was only half way past, and I think that was the driver saying "I've messed up, I can't get by and I'm blocking the traffic, slow down and let me in". Well, I'm all for cooperative driving but this numpty had tried a pass when it wasn't on, and I wasn't going to slow down to correct his mistake. Truck drivers drive all day and they really should be aware of their truck's ability to pass others, and it wasn't like I was doing anything wrong, I was on the cruise control on a constant speed. He did eventually get past, but I didn't fancy being in his cloud of spray for the next twenty minutes, so I passed him and set the cruise a little higher so we wouldn't get into the same situation again. Having held a commercial drivers' licence, I felt fully qualified to not only stick to my speed, but to call him a right knob end.
We stopped at the Service Centre in Cambridge, and I availed myself of a Tim Horton's coffee. It was fully a dollar more expensive than in a normal Tim Hortons, but worse, I had to order through an electronic kiosk, and the woman serving the drinks just dumped the cup on the counter and walked away; no order number called, no call at all, and she even covered up order sticker with the paper cup sleeve. I'd paid an extra dollar for that lack of service. I said to another worker that the first one should have called out something, and that worker agreed, but t'was a bit late by then.
Back on the road, we encountered the standard queue of traffic at the airport exit on the 401. Not that everyone was going to the airport, but you have to change highways, and that intersection is right at the point where the "Collector Lanes" join the Express Lanes, so you have multiple lanes of traffic trying to cross. It's always bad there. We also experienced Canada's dislike of informative road signs. There are precious few signs for the airport on Highway 401, and in fact the first one you see is after you get a full, panoramic view of the airport itself just by looking out of the window. You may not like London's M25, but all the airports are very well signposted on that particularly road system.
Then it was on to one of my favourite parts of the whole mechanical process of going on vacation the Park and Fly at the airport. It's run by a private company and it offers three levels of service; park off site and have you bussed into the airport, park on site and have you bussed to the airport, or drive to their site, have them park your car for you, then bus you to the airport. We like the third option, where you just leave your car on their secure site, right by the office, go in and register (or use an app like I did), get on their bus and go right to the terminal. When you arrive back, you let them know when you've landed, get on their bus at the terminal, and by the time you get to their office, your car is sat outside ready for you to drive home. It's long-term valet parking and I love it. It doesn't sound cheap when you look at the prices, $425 for three weeks, but by the time you apply all the discounts (CAA, or whatever) you only end up paying about a quarter of that. Compare that to the cost of parking at UK airports and it's a steal.
We were scarily early at the airport, as I said, but we dropped our bags having already checked in online, and made our way to the far distant end of Terminal 3. It wasn't hugely busy, so we located a quiet spot and broke open the sandwiches. The whole airport terminal, or departure lounge, idea has been changed over the years to provide an array of food and drink outlets, as well as the usual duty-free emporia. While that's not a bad idea, the prices charged at these places are beyond ridiculous, and given that there is theoretically no 13% sales tax, then it makes the price gouging even worse. As a result, we get all grumpy and bring our own food.
I can't remember how many hours we had to while away, but it was quite a relief when they started boarding for our flight early. We had, as has been our trend for a while now, bought seats in the not quite Economy/not quite Business section, so at least we had just the two of us in the row. The aircraft was a Boeing 787, the plastic 'plane, and the seats were OK, certainly better than the ones on the British Airways Airbus aircraft. At least there was plenty of leg room, which is why we choose these more expensive seats.
The flight departed bang on time, but disappointment followed, though, when I found out that the proprietary headphone sockets on the entertainment system didn't like my Bose adapter, so I was doomed to using the rubbish supplied by the airline rather than my very nice Bose version. The offending sockets were also damaged and they wouldn't hold the jack-plug in place, and allowed sound from only one side of the earphones unless I held the jack-plug in place. Then I found out that the touch-screen that was to show the movies and whatnot had a dead area across the top and down the right-hand side, which limited how I could use it. There was a remote control thingy tucked into the seat arm, but that allowed only basic functions. Between the screen and the remote I managed to get most things to work, but not all. I get it, the airline doesn't break these things, but it's disappointing all the same.
Anyway, I did manage to snatch a bit of sleep, although not nearly enough, and I did get to enjoy seeing the sun light up the starboard wing in the wee small hours, though the fancy LCD filter on the window that these 787s use rather than a pull down blind. Sadly, at 40,000 feet, above some dense cloud, I didn't get to see Cork (in Ireland), the land of my fathers.
I will close this entry now, as technically I was in day two of the trip as we flew over the Emerald Isle. There will be plenty more to write up, but so I'll do my best to keep each entry slightly less than the entirety of War and Peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment